June 9-10, 2001 National Review Online

Roots — Deep Ones The perils of looking into American prehistory

By John J. Miller, One of the secrets of archaeology is that many truly great finds aren't made by archaeologists. It was a farmer, Harold Conover, who stumbled on a clue in the late 1980s that led to a magnificent site in Virginia called Cactus Hill. Conover and his wife were walking on logging roads near their home when he spotted a few Indian artifacts mixed in the sand. He soon traced the sand back to a quarry about ten miles away. Thanks to this detective work, a group of archaeologists led by Joseph McAvoy started digging near that quarry in the early 1990s. They unearthed signs of human habitation stretching back about 18,000 years — making Cactus Hill one of the two or three oldest sites in North America. They also found evidence to support one of the most provocative developments of our time: the growing suspicion among physical anthropologists, archaeologists, and even geneticists that some of the first people who settled in the New World were Europeans.

Ten years ago, hardly anybody outside crackpot circles would have contemplated this notion. There's a whole speculative literature of oddball theories on groups coming to America in antiquity. Ivan Van Sertima's They Came Before Columbus points to statues produced by Mexico's Olmec civilization as representations of Negroid faces, and the book remains a perennial grocery-store seller. Nancy Yaw Davis argued last year in The Zuni Enigma that New Mexico's Zuni tribe has too much in common with ancient Japanese culture for it to be a coincidence. Many of these ideas persist simply because they're hard to disprove, and it's important to remember that the whole field is afflicted with celebrated frauds like the Kensington Runestone — a large stone slab that came to light a century ago and claims to describe the travels of 14th-century Vikings in Minnesota.

Despite the uncertainty, it has become increasingly clear over the last decade that the history-textbook version of ancient American settlement no longer holds up. The first Americans, according to the standard view, arrived about 12,000 years ago by way of a land bridge that once connected Siberia and Alaska. Thanks to a handful of sites like Cactus Hill, it is now beyond dispute that some people got here much earlier. Asia remains a likely source for migrations, because of its proximity and the fact that today's Indians indisputably have ancestors who lived there. But Asia may not be the only source, and there's good reason to think it wasn't.

This ought to be thrilling news for the multiculturalists. What better project for them than the serious study of America's prehistory — a glorious mosaic whose rich diversity is only now seeing daylight? But it must be remembered that multiculturalism is motivated not by sincere curiosity about the past, but by the sensitivities of modern victimology. An important part of American Indian identity relies on the belief that, in some fundamental way, they were here first. They are indigenous, they are Native, and they make an important moral claim on the national conscience for this very reason. Yet if some population came before them — perhaps a group their own ancestors wiped out through war and disease, in an eerily reversed foreshadowing of the contact Columbus introduced — then a vital piece of their mythologizing suffers a serious blow. This revised history drastically undercuts the posturing occasioned by the 500th anniversary of Columbus's 1492 voyage.

The prime mover behind the European-migration theory is Dennis Stanford, a jovial anthropologist who has spent nearly three decades at the Smithsonian Institution studying Stone Age technology. A big table dominates his office in the National Museum of Natural History, and it's often cluttered with primitive tools borrowed from the Smithsonian's huge collection. He is an authority on Clovis Culture, named for the town in New Mexico where the first remnants of it were found in 1932. The Clovis people were said to be big-game hunters who stalked mammoths, and they left behind distinctive relics. Researchers were so sure that they were the continent's original settlers — about 12,000 years ago — that suggesting otherwise was professional heresy.

But by the late 1980s, Stanford and a few of his colleagues, including his former student Bruce Bradley, began to harbor serious doubts about the Clovis theory. For starters, there were a handful of sites, such as Pennsylvania's Meadowcroft Rockshelter, that seemed older than Clovis. But more important, in Stanford's view, was the complete lack of evidence that Clovis culture ever existed outside the Americas. He spent years scouring museum collections around the world, but always came away empty. "It was getting pretty discouraging," he says.

In truth, there is a Stone Age technology that looks an awful lot like Clovis, and its existence troubled Stanford and Bradley: The culture that produced it wasn't found in Siberia, where just about everybody would have expected it, but at the other end of the same landmass — in modern-day France and Spain. It's called Solutrean, and it vanished some 20,000 years ago. Stanford and Bradley were especially intrigued by the fact that the greatest concentration of Clovis sites occurs in the southeastern United States: If the technology is native to the Americas, it was probably invented in this area. If it wasn't native, then this was probably the site to which it was imported — on the side of the North American continent facing Europe. But a pair of insurmountable obstacles appeared to separate the Clovis and Solutrean cultures: several thousand years, and a large ocean.

Then came the findings at Cactus Hill. "As soon as we started to see some of that stuff come out, we thought about the connection to Solutrean," says Stanford. Joseph McAvoy and his team found Clovis artifacts on the site, as well as irrefutably older material that Stanford and Bradley think is a developmental form of Clovis technology.

That's a groundbreaking observation. Experts in ancient technology like to build family trees. Just as a sculptor can hack a limitless number of objects out of a stone block, there are an infinite number of ways to chip a hand ax or spearpoint from a rock. Over time, cultures develop particular techniques; archaeologists can identify them and create tool genealogies. If they find tools that look similar and were manufactured in the same way, there's a good chance the people making them shared cultural traits. They may have been blood relatives or trading partners, but whatever their precise relationship, they almost certainly drew from the same storehouse of knowledge.

Stanford is one of the world's few remaining accomplished flintknappers: Give him the right type of rock and he can flake it into a long, bifacial, and fluted spearpoint just like a Clovis hunter would. While other scholars have noted the similarities between Clovis and Solutrean technology as a mildly interesting example of cultural convergence — in other words, a coincidence — Stanford's expertise in flintwork made him suspect a deeper connection: "There are so many matching steps in how they made their tools: bifacial flaking, heat treatment, similar ceremonial items, the presence of red ocher. There must be fifty or sixty points of comparison. It can't be chance." And yet nobody could figure out a way to bridge the thousands of years and miles dividing the two groups.

Then, in 1994, a team of Emory University scientists studying genetic diversity made an unexpected discovery. They examined a specific kind of DNA lineage known as mitochondrial DNA in ethnic groups around the world. Their survey of American Indians found four major varieties, which they labeled haplogroups A, B, C, and D. Each of these has antecedents in Asia, confirming that today's Indians descend almost entirely from Asian stock. But there's a fifth lineage, too, called haplogroup X. It occurs in about a quarter of all Ojibway Indians, and in lesser amounts among members of the Sioux, Navajo, and other tribes. A version of the X haplogroup shows up in only one other place on the planet: Europe.

"That's what pushed me over the edge," says Stanford. If the X haplogroup had found its way to America through Siberia, it almost certainly would have left behind a mark somewhere in Asia; but exhaustive searching has turned up no indications of any passage. The simplest explanation is an Atlantic crossing.

Out of Europe? Actual human remains might help clinch the case. Unfortunately, not many 9,000-year-old skeletons survive today. The small sample that are known raise fascinating possibilities. The much-disputed Kennewick Man, for instance, is said to have Caucasoid features, as opposed to the Mongoloid ones of present-day Indians. (This isn't to say he was "white" — nobody knows the color of his skin.) Some researchers have suggested his morphology most closely resembles the Ainu, an indigenous Japanese population. But the prospect of early migrations from places other than Asia can't be dismissed. One skull found in Brazil shares more similarities with Australian Aborigines than with any other group. "The evidence is mounting that the earliest North Americans were a distinct people, or perhaps several distinct peoples, who cannot easily be linked to modern American Indians," writes James C. Chatters — the forensic anthropologist who recovered Kennewick Man — in his just-published book, Ancient Encounters.

How might Europeans have made it to the Americas so long ago? The challenge appears immense, but there is a tendency to underestimate the cleverness of ancient peoples — a tendency that grows over time, perhaps, as we depend more on sophisticated technology and begin to believe that only a half-wit would sail beyond sight of the coast without hooking up to a GPS satellite. But boats and navigation aren't recent inventions; human beings reached Australia at least 40,000 years ago, and getting there would have required — at least — a trip of about 80 miles on the high seas, from New Guinea. That's much shorter than traversing the Atlantic, to be sure, but the important point is that it represents a willingness and ability among ancient people to leave the relative safety of coastal waterways.

A migration out of Europe seems distinctly possible if we consider a number of factors that probably would have given ancient travelers a boost. During the last ice age, the sea levels were lower; today's coasts were inland, and the distance from Western Europe to the Grand Banks (which then formed the easternmost part of North America) would have been about 1,400 miles — far, but much closer than it is today. In addition, an ice shelf extending south from the Arctic would have presented a clear route. Seals, penguins, and fish would have offered nourishment along the way. The prevailing ocean current, too, would have swept these early people in the right direction. So the journey wouldn't have required the prehistoric equivalent of the Apollo space program. may have been a few guys on an ice floe," says Stanford.

Discovering an 18,000-year-old Irish coracle off the New Jersey shore would settle a lot of questions, but ancient boats were made of perishable materials. Tools and bones last longer, and that's what makes the Cactus Hill artifacts and the Kennewick remains so important. Prehistory isn't called prehistory for nothing: It's a challenge to study, because the people who made it left only scant traces of themselves. Even if a European migration really did happen, the evidence proving it conclusively may not exist today. What evidence does exist seems to turn up by happenstance, such as when a farmer takes a stroll down a logging road. In the case of Kennewick Man, a pair of boozed-up college students waded into the Columbia River to avoid buying $11 tickets for a boating exhibition, and then spotted a skull sticking out of the mud. These important discoveries were essentially accidents.

The truth may be out there, but some people would prefer to keep it hidden. Kennewick Man, for instance, is currently locked up in Seattle's Burke Museum, where nobody is allowed to study him. Last September, interior secretary Bruce Babbitt announced his intention to give the priceless remains to modern-day Indian tribes that intended to bury the bones without allowing scientists a look. Several researchers (including Stanford) sued, and a judge stopped the handover. Lawyers will argue the case on June 19, and the fate of Kennewick Man — perhaps the most important human skeleton ever found in the Western Hemisphere — remains uncertain.

This case is hardly an exception. Thanks to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, federally recognized tribes have the right to petition for human remains. The idea was to help them protect their ancestors from grave robbers — but in practice the law has become a tool for tribal activists to prevent the study of ancient people. The Friends of America's Past, an organization based in Portland, Ore., counts five other sets of bones — rough contemporaries of Kennewick Man — that have been lost to science under this or similar laws, and another six "in jeopardy" of the same fate. Most of these remains are said to share the vaguely "Caucasoid" traits seen on Kennewick Man — but again, research opportunities have been restricted.

Stanford and Bradley are completing a manuscript on the Clovis-Solutrean connection, which the University of California Press expects to publish next year. It's impossible to say whether the next generation of scholars will come to look at their work as a turning point in our understanding of prehistory, or a less-than-completely-convincing argument that makes creative use of meager material. What seems increasingly clear, however, is that the old story of a simple land migration from Siberia 12,000 years ago won't survive. The question of what will replace it should be a matter of concern to all of us, because the first Americans represent the heritage of all Americans. No single person or group owns the past; we all do, collectively. And it is only through a spirit of scientific inquiry that we may learn the answer to that fascinating question: How did the New World come to have such people in it?

-- (Paracelsus@Pb.Au), June 12, 2001

Answers

Paleskin bastards. You already took our land, now you want to take our heritage.

-- (Tonto_@_kemo_sabe's.teepee), June 12, 2001.

The most interesting thing about this article are the numerous digs the author gets in against his imagined political enemies while going through the motions of discussing science.

The resemblances between the Clovis and Solutrean artifacts have been known since shortly after the Clovis sites were discovered in 1932. The possible connection between them has been temptingly lying around in plain sight for all that time. It is nice to see that some scientists have (again) taken up the cudgels and tried to piece together a theory to account for the resemblance.

But what this has to do with "the sensitivities of modern victimology" and "the posturing occasioned by the 500th anniversary of Columbus's 1492 voyage" is less than apparent to me. Reading this is like eating a salad with grit in it. Makes you wish the author had washed his facts more thoroughly to get rid of the ideological dirt.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), June 12, 2001.

Nipper:

I had that feeling, but not as strongly as you did. It sounded more to me like he really cared about the evidence, and is really frustrated that some of the very most (at least potentially) revealing of that evidence is being deliberately destroyed, and scientists not allowed to examine it, for political reasons.

And there really is no good reason why the nobba-wah-wah-nockee tribe should be able to have such findings eliminated without examination. Who the hell are they anyway? There is absolutely no indication that most if not all of these findings can be tied to the ancestry of ANY living people.

When important, irreplaceable evidence in any field is deliberately destroyed for political reasons, I think there is a legitimate gripe. Are you suggesting this practice, which IS happening, should be simply ignored so that scientific discussions can be more "scientific"?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 12, 2001.

There is a 60' monolith in my back 40 that is of unknown age and material. It does not weather and emits a low hum. It is covered with undecipherable runes.

My cousin Per from Norway could read some of it but he became frightened when he encountered "Loki". He says there are similar monoliths near Trollhagen. People avoid them.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 13, 2001.

LN--

I posted this article despite its Conservative twists because it was the only article I found on the issue. I think the determination of early North American settlement by Europeans (or Ainu or whoever) would be an important development in the human knowledge-base and if no one but NR acknowledges it then that speaks to Liberalism's desire to spike science that conflicts with their orthodoxies.

Someone here recently commented on how European-Americans had committed "genocide" on native-americans. Wouldn't it be interesing to learn that the truest native-americans were of European stock and that they were exterminated by later native-americans who emigrated from Asia?

BTW, the word "genocide" did not exist before WWII.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 13, 2001.

"if no one but NR acknowledges it then that speaks to Liberalism's desire to spike science that conflicts with their orthodoxies."

That seems to me to be a rather unwarranted conclusion. The Washington Times also failed to acknowledge this development. Does that make it liberal? The Manchester Guardian is conspicuously silent, too.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), June 13, 2001.

Well, you know what I mean. If there turns out to be a concerted effort amongst mainstream sources to ignore/harass/ridicule legitemate science then that means somebody's agenda is threatened. I don't care which pubs are involved.

Doesn't really matter. If there is something important here, it will be revealed sooner or later. I guess that if I really cared, I should see what more professional academic journals (than NR) are saying or not saying.

You know as well as I that there are special-interest groups that would not want this matter to be pursued.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 13, 2001.

The Manchester Guardian is Liberal, wouldn't you say?

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 13, 2001.

"If there turns out to be a concerted effort amongst mainstream sources to ignore/harass/ridicule legitemate science then that means somebody's agenda is threatened."

No offense, Lars, but if my grandmother had wheels she would be a trolley.

There is no evidence I've seen so far that any one is making such a concerted effort to "harass" legitimate science. As for ignoring and ridiculing, those seem pretty mutually exclusive. It would be hard to claim that both were happening at the same time.

It is true that the Yakima tribe is claiming Kennewick Man and doesn't want to let scientists examine the bones. You only need to understand that anthropologists and other "legitimate" scientists have worn out their welcome with most tribes, as a result of their activities toward those tribes. It's just chickens coming home to roost.

BTW, what you view as an "agenda" that is being threatened, the Yakima apparently view as a religious practise that is being interfered with. If you agree that Christians are being harrassed in many foreign countries for holding beliefs that run counter to the majority, and that such harrassment is bad, then I would hope that you could at least see that this situation might share some similarities.

It isn't as simple as the article painted it. Tellingly, the article made no effort whatever to substantiate the motives it assigned. Please go back to the fallacies web site and reread the explanantion of ad hominem:

"Any time an argument impugns an opponent's motives, veracity, or qualifications, it is an ad hominum attack..."

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), June 13, 2001.

LN--

I agree with Flint's remark. Anyway, on what basis are the tacky Yakimas claiming Kennewick man as one of their own? Let the anthropologists axamine the remains and then respectfully return them with a Marine color guard to the injuns if they are not of anthrological significance.

Do you seriously believe that there are not vested interests at risk here?

As for ignoring and ridiculing, those seem pretty mutually exclusive. It would be hard to claim that both were happening at the same time.

Where did I say that the ignoring and ridiculing would be simultaneous? The dynamics of discrediting an idea or a person often consist of sequentially ignoring, ridiculing and then, if nothing else works, co-opting.

Aaah, it doesn't matter that much to me. Actually, Man originated in NA and then migrated to all other continents. I have Golden Tablets from God that reveal this truth.

Off to root for Sixers.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 13, 2001.

Lars: "I agree with Flint's statement."

I presume you mean this one:

Flint: "When important, irreplaceable evidence in any field is deliberately destroyed for political reasons, I think there is a legitimate gripe."

I understand very well that Kennewick Man is irreplaceable. I dispute Flint's characterization that the motives or reasons of the Yakima are purely "political". This is an opinion.

Also, the fact that Flint identified the tribe in question as the "nobba-wah-wah-nockee tribe" would indicate to me that he not familiar enough with the case to now whether the tribe's reasons are political or not. He appears to be making assumptions or judgements based on a minimal number of facts. If Flint knew enough about the case to make such a judgment, he would also have known the name of the people he was impugning.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), June 13, 2001.

You flout the sensitivities of the proud Asatru people.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 14, 2001.

I thought the line "nobba-wah-wah-nockee tribe" was pretty good; almost as good as "tacky Yakima".

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 14, 2001.

"You flout the sensitivities of the proud Asatru people."

Lars, you may yet live to rue the day you posted that link to common logical fallacies. Maybe this was meant exclusively as a funny-ha-ha. As an argument it does not address any facts, but attempts yet another ad hominem.

In terms of a logical argument, if 10 stupid people make a stupid argument in favor of some action, and one person makes a completely different, fully cogent argument in favor of the same action, then saying the cogent person agrees with idiots doesn't refute the cogent argument.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), June 14, 2001.

LN, you take yourself much too seriously. The Sixers lost, dang.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 14, 2001.

"LN, you take yourself much too seriously."

Sorry. I've been tangling with Remember the old forum on another thread. He says very similar things, but expects you to take them seriously.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), June 14, 2001.

Nipper:

I have no idea why the Yakima might want to destroy evidence, especially considering that we have no way to know whether those bones might be ancestral to any identifiable people today. On what grounds do the Yakima claim them? Even if they had qualified paleontologists, they aren't being permitted to examine the remains either.

But the decision as to whether to *permit* the Yakima to destroy evidence is a political decision, regardless of their motivations. If the Yakima just wish to destroy bones, we have plenty of them to spare. We probably have some much more likely to be related to the Yakima.

I only saw a 60 minutes episode about this case. The Yakima representative interviewed simply *could not imagine* why anyone might want to add to their store of knowledge, in violation of tribal practices with respect to their own dead. But the ONLY claim he had to these remains was that he wanted them, and the decision whether to let him have them was and is a political decision. This is not an opinion.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 14, 2001.

The primary political decision was made when the Congress passed the law under which this case is being tried - The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. The exact name doesn't matter so much as what the law says.

The purpose of the law was to reestablish the ownership of tribal aritifacts and human remains with th tribes from which they originated. The problem the law addressed was that a very large number of such artifacts had religious significance and they were removed from native burial sites. The natives would say "looted". In a lot of cases a legitimate provenance for these items would be impossible to establish.

That law now governs the return of such artifacts and human remains to their respective tribes and (most importantly for this case) it gives tribes control of pre-European human burials that fall within their ancestral territory. The current legal presumption is that the tribes have better title to such remains than anyone else.

When Kennewick Man was discovered, the first idea was that the bones might be young. The sherrif's department was called in. The coroner suspected the bones were old, so an anthropologist examined them. He established that the bones were 9,000 years old (give or take). He also made the astonishing remark that the bones appeared to have caucasian characteristics.

This immediately triggered a furor. The bones were claimed under the law by the Yakima as a pre-European burial within their anscestral territory and they announced at the same time that it was their intention to rebury the bones.

A group of anthropologists filed suit to prevent this claim, based on their claim that the interests of science outweighed the legal rights of the Yakima. Pretty much, the scientists were arguing that the intent of the law did not apply to such old bones, even if the language of the law seemed to apply.

One upshot of this was that the anthropologists set themselves up as adversaries and competitors of the Yakima from the get-go. The relationship between anthropologists and tribes, especially around the subject of native bones, was severely strained before Kennewick Man. This legal wrangle absolutely ensures that both sides are dead-set on getting their way. When you charge in with both guns blazing it is a bit hard to kis and make up.

Legally, the Yakima have by far the better claim. That has been upheld so far by the outcome. The scientists will fight as long as they have funds.

One thing I will note here, since Flint has mentioned it before when it suited his purposes while arguing against global warming - scientists are not always noble, disinterested parties. Kennewick Man represents, among other things, the chance to score a big reputation, and probably a cushy job with a prestigious university, too.

As I said. It just isn't that simple. The law is pretty plain. The courts are supposed to uphold the law. The Yakima are pretty pissed off that it has taken so long to uphold the law - the remains still haven't been returned to them. I must say they have a case.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), June 14, 2001.

Nipper:

Thanks. I didn't know all that. And I agree, the letter of the law gives the Yakima a very good case. Whether or not the law itself is good is a matter of interpretation. Why the Yakima themselves show absolutely no curiosity about the provenence of Kennewick Man, and are willing to accept him into their tribe despite pretty damn clear evidence that he has no ancestral lineage to them whatsoever, is a curious question. And a question I think is worth asking. The Yakima are not stupid.

I'm undecided whether or not you are trying to imply that the anthropologists and paleontologists are *primarily* motivated by the desire for fame and security, or rather innocently emphasizing this possibility because it just happened to cross your mind. And I suppose the idea that, in addition to being human, scientists are genuinely and sincerely curious, just didn't happen to cross your mind and get mentioned. Just coincidence, I suppose.

So I'll face it a bit more directly. Yes, major findings like this do usually make names and careers for their principals. But scientists are NOT, as a rule, in that business in the hopes of making a major discovery and basking in the resulting fame. I would estimate, based on my life experience, that such motivations are not uppermost in this case. You may view scientists as being more venal, though. Hey, we all project ourselves onto others, know what I mean? [grin]

Frankly, I don't see these goals as necessarily mutually exclusive. The scientists could have been examining Kennewick Man in as much detail as we know how to bring to bear all this time, and the Yakima could have buried him afterwards. Or, the Yakima could claim him, and then rent him out to the scientists for a while before burying him, and make some good income. It's the Yakima who are making any such compromise impossible. Again, one can only wonder why.

Finally, I think if the Yakima win this case, the law as written won't last long. In that case, it can be interpreted as requiring that ANY old human remains should be immediately handed over to the nearest indian tribe for destruction before examination, or whatever the nearest tribe decides to do. And while this is speculation, it's not too far fetched for the Yakima to also speculate about. There are many ways to shoot yourself in the foot.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 14, 2001.

Dip into the ultimate thread reference on this if you happen to need some more raw material for your respective arguments. Lots of great info, scientific and legal, surrounding this honestly fascinating discovery.

-- Bemused (and_amazed@you.people), June 15, 2001.

Interesting topic, Paracelsus. I don't know enough about it to comment, but the article was interesting and the comments are interesting, as well.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), June 15, 2001.

From a memo by the Department of Interior archaeologist:

"As defined in NAGPRA, "Native American" refers to human remains and cultural items relating to tribes, peoples, or cultures that resided within the area now encompassed by the United States prior to the historically documented arrival of European explorers, irrespective of when a particular group may have begun to reside in this area, and, irrespective of whether some or all of these groups were or were not culturally affiliated or biologically related to present-day Indian tribes."

The anthropologists burned their bridges behind them when they filed suit to block the claim instead of negotiating with the legal owners for access. I happen to think that the information that could be obtained from a complete examination would be priceless, and I would love to see it happen.

On the other hand, I recognize there was a tremnedous arrogance shown by the scientific community when it said to the legal owners, in effect, "You may be the legal owner, but what we want is more important than what you want. And if you won't let us do exactly what we want with these human remains you believe are your ancestor, then we'll take it away from you."

Talk about catching flies with vinegar.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), June 15, 2001.

I heard a half hour radio program on the finds at Cactus Hill. The show turned out to be mostly about infighting among the scientists involved.

As for the court case, I would rule against the tribe. The law (from the site cited by bemused) indicated that there could be disputes over ancestry. But then, if I were writing the law, I would only have given out the right to protect clearly marked graves. Anyone whose burial site is not on record would not be protected.

-- dandelion (golden@pleurisy.plant), June 17, 2001.